W4 Commission Officer Lee Roy Robinson is hesitant to talk about the specifics of what happened to him during World War II, but the tears in his voice when the memories come flooding back tell a story words cannot.

“I lost too many friends in the war,” he explained. “I saw them dead and that tears me up. I can see the Arizona sinking. My friends were on there.”

Robinson, 93, was at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, when the first wave of 49 Japanese high-altitude bombers, 51 dive-bombers, 40 torpedo planes and 43 fighter planes struck the island of Oahu.

He was there on Dec. 7, 1941, when an armor-piercing bomb pierced the forward deck of the U.S.S. Arizona, set off more than a million pounds of gunpowder and killed 1,177 men. Some said the ship jumped 15 feet upward in the water and broke in two. In nine minutes, the Arizona was on the ocean floor.

“We knew it was going to hit one day,” Robinson said. “But nobody topside would take much bearing on it.”

After Pearl Harbor, Robinson participated in the Battle of Midway — widely regarded as the most important U.S. Naval victory of the Pacific Campaign and a major turning point in the war. Only six months after Pearl Harbor, the United States successfully deflected the Japanese attack against Midway Atoll and inflicted considerable damage to the Japanese fleet.

Robinson spent a great deal of time in the Pacific Theater.

“I left after the war got going good and went into the Battle of Midway. From the islands all the way down,” he said. “I ended up with (Gen. Douglas] MacArthur going into the Philippines.

“I left from that bunch in the Philippines and went to Okinawa. I had my 22nd birthday there. I didn’t think I’d make it through. I thought I’d end up coming into the world and going out on the same date.”

Of his 31-year career in the military, Robinson spent most of it at war. When America dropped the atomic bombs that ended World War II, Robinson came home and looked for work. When he was unable to find any, he re-enlisted. From there, he wound up doing two tours in Korea and spent a year in Vietnam.

During his time in Korea, Robinson hit a trip wire and was thrown 50 feet. Several other soldiers were also caught in the trap.

“I hit the ground and started rolling,” he said. “I figured this was it. I would be dead. I ended up seven months in the hospital. Those who were with me ended up in a coffin.”

Robinson broke his left knee and both his shoulders in the blast — an injury he carries with him to this day. Robinson can’t get around very far without the aid of crutches.

“I can’t walk even a block without my sticks,” he said.

The war cost him a great deal more than that. According to Robinson, he lost his first wife to the war as well.

“She told me that I had to quit and come home,” he said. “I couldn’t get out. I couldn’t get back to the states. Back then you didn’t get to come home. You stayed until the job was finished, no matter how long it took. I was gone three years one time.

“It’s not good for a man to be married and be in the service. Especially during wartime.”

Robinson has strong opinions about the current administration and the direction the country has gone.

“It’s hard for me to think about,” he said. “I fought so hard for this country where it is.”

Robinson said he worries that the country has become too comfortable with the idea of socialism — that the current administration is taking the country in the wrong direction.

“Obamacare is the sloppiest, sorriest damn thing I have ever tried to study,” he explained. “It’s not good for anyone. We spend more money than we have coming in, you’ll go broke. It ain’t even hard to figure out. You can’t spend more than you take in.

“What’s wrong with Communism? Everything is wrong with it. You’ll end up in a totalitarian state. The liberals are good people, but they’re ruining our country. You can’t give the whole country welfare.”

Robinson spends his days concentrating on his church, Victory Missionary Baptist, where he said you can find just about everything you would ever need from a church — a lovely building, music and “one heckuva good preacher.”

Robinson lives alone in Russellville ever since his wife, Martha Elizabeth, passed away in 2010 at the age of 97 under hospice care.

“I am sure in my heart I am sad,” he said, reflecting on his wife. “I wanted to take her and save her. They wouldn’t let me do it. That’s where I am now — missing her, living in a house.

“A new house and a new car does not make a home. It takes a wife to make a home. I tried my best to go with her, but Jesus left me here for something.”

Robinson describes himself as a “has-been” who is simply waiting to go home and see his wife again, seemingly unaware of the impact he has had on his country both in the 1940s and in the present.